The Nāṣirī Generations 258.5.3

258.5.3

That host, in the month of Rabi'-ul-Awwal, 617 H., such a small number been sent they would have been liable to be cut off when separated, in a country too where there were men who only wanted leaders to make them fight. Even a force of 60,000, as our author states, allowing for those killed, disabled, or carried off by disease, was small enough; but, it is certain, that the Mughals, as was their custom, compelled men of the places they captured or passed through to join them, and incorporated them in their armies; and, by this means, they managed to save their own men at the cost of their recruits. We must also remember that they had to depend on the parts they overran for supplies. That they could be resisted in far greater numbers than 30,000 or even 60,000 by resolute men, the defence of Utrar, Khujand, Tirmid, Sistan, and Khwarazm, abundantly shows, as well as the determined resistance of other places mentioned by our author farther on but which no other writers have even named, much less described. When the Chingiz Khan had reached Samrkand, in Zi-Hijjah, 616 H., [end of February, A.D. 1220], and had completely invested that place, news, it is said reached him that the Sultan had crossed the Jihun by the Tirmid ferry, that the greater part of his troops were stationed in different fortresses, and the remainder dispersed in various parts.